PORTALS
STARS Gallery, Los Angeles
Bradley Bell, Jacci Den Hartog, Hanna Hur, Ravi Jackson, Alexandra Noel, Megan Plunkett, Sonya Rapoport, Tristan Unrau, Daniel Wenger
Opening Reception Thursday, November 16, 6–8pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 12–5 pm
3116 N El Centro Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028
646) 256-3711 | www.stars-gallery.com
Sonya Rapoport is featured in the exhibition “Portals” at STARS Gallery in Los Angeles.
Sonya Rapoport, Ancient Gateways (detail), 1989. Artist Book: photocopy, graphite, and ink stamp on paper, framed, 8½W x 77H inches (unframed).
Sonya Rapoport’s 1989 artist book Ancient Gateways represents the earliest artwork associated with her iconic, computer-mediated “audience participation performance” Animated Soul - Gateway to Your Ka (1989-92).
This extended project reflects Rapoport’s interest in the mystical belief system described in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, especially as an antecedent to the Ten Commandments. Although the project features lighthearted wordplay and images, it is ultimately an exploration of mortality and divine judgment (ka is the Egyptian word for double or soul).
Animated Soul eventually took the form of an interactive hypermedia installation at Ghia Gallery, a funerary casket showroom in San Francisco in 1990. A series of collages derived from imagery that first appeared in Ancient Gateways was displayed alongside a computer running a Hypercard program. Participants began by selecting an owl (wisdom), windmill (power), or dancers (pleasure), and, after a series of choices, were printed a ticket with their assigned “ancient double,” or Egyptian god. They then found their “words of power” in one of 27 open coffins, and received their “boarding pass” to everlasting life.
Ancient Gateways represents Rapoport’s first engagement with concepts and imagery that would occupy her for several years. The Rapoport Estate believes that the only other existing copy is committed in perpetuity to the Sonya Rapoport Archives at the Bancroft Library of Western Americana at UC Berkeley.